By Anders Christian Hjort

Having done behavioural research for the last 6 years in the social selling arena, and still testing hypothesis on how outstanding sellers apply social selling behaviours, I support that a LinkedIn only based approach is not unleashing the full potential and value of social selling.

Social Selling is about communicating, observing and moderating social interactions, the purpose being to disrupt, influence and persuade potential leads on-line early from a buying psychology point of view.

Creating awareness and a robust reputation around you as a seller and your company, so a decision choosing to connect, interact and meet with you will be easy and low risk early stage.

Training, coaching and observing 500+ high performing B2B sales executives in a year, I find the very best sales executives communicate multichannel, and excell in using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, E-mail and still the good old telephone – today the smart phone where all their tools are present and easily accessible.

They embrace their leads and prospects. Today I see also Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest being used more.

Why?

Well their future customers are there…

So you meet them where they are also in social media platform terms.

Now what’s also important is that Marketing have become more mature in applying social media in their approach to empower their sales executives with persuasive contents, content they can use directly or curate to their own style to stay authentic.

So, tools like Salesforce, Marketo, Hubspot etc. are a part of the social media “machine” to scale and get leverage.

I also see the very sophisticated sellers program their social media feeds like they were running a television or radio station – they understand they have become marketing antennas and have to deliver persuasive content within their expertise and industry.

Now, why do they do that?

Is it really worth it?

We know from our research that the sellers that master and influence needs and buying criteria, differentiating themselves uniquely and early in the prospects buying process, will win the business more likely and get ahead of the competition even before the RFP is sent out.

We also know that having a good social media reputation will differentiate you as a seller, and this will help you when risks and concerns choosing you and your company is assessed by the buyer late cycle.

Social Selling is an ECO-system where Sales and Marketing come together because they deliver hard core value – well qualified warm and hot leads early in the Buying Cycle like in the good old days.

Nothing new under the sun…

Buying psychology has not changed, however the context and content has.

The best sellers adapt to this environment using multichannel social media platforms. It helps them to outthink and outperform their average performing peers by 2 digit growth rates and an outstanding customer experience.

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